allplants has acheived a top B-Corp score because of its positive impact on people and planet
City Harvest B-Corp partner, allplants, re-certified as an ‘Outstanding’ B-Corp in 2021 thanks to working with food distribution charities like City Harvest.
“We’ve worked tirelessly to reduce our food waste, and have saved an average of 91% of our total food waste from the bin. Working with charities like City Harvest has been vital in reducing our food waste; they’ve helped us divert any quality food for those in most need.”
Last year alone, allplants provided surplus food for over 36,000 meals diverted to City Harvest’s 375+ London charity recipients. allplants’ ‘(Not At) School Dinners’ campaign aims to eradicate Holiday Hunger. Launched in Autumn 2022, it provides free allplants meals, distributed by City Harvest, to school children during the school holidays. The schools in this initiative have high numbers of children who receive Free School Meals during term time. They already work with City Harvest to help support their school community in need through free food.
This B-Corp month, we caught up with Development Chef, Mimi Phillips. She talks about how City Harvest has helped allplants to maintain its commitment to people and the planet.
“We wouldn’t have been able to achieve our ‘Outstanding’ B-Corp score without the help of charities such as City Harvest, who’ve helped us divert our food waste to those that need it most.”
How is City Harvest a solution for Allplants?
City Harvest has provided us with a home for allplants’ surplus food that is still perfectly good to eat. Every day, we taste every batch that was cooked the day before to make sure it meets our internal standards. We know mistakes happen in food production, and that’s where City Harvest comes in.
Because we’re selling our products, we need to make sure there’s consistency in every meal. A recent example of something we donated to City Harvest was our overnight oat breakfast pots. These just weren’t soaked for long enough; everything else about them was delicious, so it was a batch for donation! It’s never easy deciding we can’t sell a batch of meals, but providing good food to our local community is fantastic.
Family collects allplants meals at Manorfield Primary school, Tower Hamlets. allplants supplied surplus to City Harvest for 36K meals in 2022, helping to feed food-insecure families.
How does working with City Harvest align with allplants’ B-Corp values?
To become a B-Corp, companies must meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. allplants was one of the original B-Corp brands, first certifying in 2018. B-Corps have to re-certify every three years, and in 2021, we did just that. We were awarded an ‘Outstanding’ Impact Score (only 3% of B-Corps achieve this status, so it puts us in the top 0.1% of UK food companies). We couldn’t have done this without charities like City Harvest helping us divert our surplus to those in most need.
Since our meals are made with plants, they’re naturally better for the planet. But, as a business, our responsibility is greater than our product. The manufacturing industry in the UK generates about 1.5 million tonnes of food waste every year. This equates to approximately 16% of the UK’s total food waste. At allplants, we wanted to contribute to changing that.
We’ve worked tirelessly to reduce our food waste, and have managed to save an average of 91% of our total food waste from the bin. Working with charities like City Harvest has been vital in reducing our food waste. They’ve helped us divert any food that is still absolutely fine to eat to people who need it most. It’s often hard for businesses to find homes for surplus food, but City Harvest does that hard work for us. So, we’re extremely grateful.
